Bad Timing (On All Accounts)
by Time-Space-And-Stories
Summary: "'If you were dying, what would you do'... And you replied, 'Call Phil'." With a clearing of his throat, Phil tilted his head slightly, the grin on his face slipping to a curious (and most definitely not smug) smile. "Why call me?" Dan froze momentarily. "There wasn't any context or anything… What would you do, then?"


"So do right people with wrong timing ever get a second try?" - Unknown

* * *

 _"'_ _If you were dying, what would you do?' …And you replied: 'Call Phil'." He, Phil, chuckled, his chin held in his hands as his fingers curled over his mouth. He was sprawled across his bedcovers, feet waving lazily in the air at the other end of the bed whilst his laptop shone directly into his face. Phil dragged his eyes from the screen and turned his gaze down to the mop of dark hair squashed by the foot of the bed. Dan's knees were hugged to his chest as he scrolled through his phone, but all Phil could see was a mess of curls (a nice change to the usual ironed-flat-for-the-public look), which made him think of cinnamon shampoo and carefully weaving fingers and reams of warm blankets and soft kisses and –_

 _"_ _Yeah," Dan said, his tone enough to tell Phil that he was waiting for more to Phil's point. He didn't sound annoyed though; perhaps because the fact Phil knew this meant that Dan now had a pretty good insight as to what the elder had potentially been spending the past hour looking at on the internet. Dan carded a hand through his hair and managed to distract Phil for a few more seconds._

 _With a clearing of his throat, Phil tilted his head slightly, the grin on his face slipping to a curious (and most definitely not smug) smile. "Why call me?" Phil watched Dan freeze momentarily, and continued, "You could've called anyone. Well – actually – you didn't even have to_ _ **call**_ _anyone in the first place."_

 _"_ _Exactly," Dan mumbled, his shoulder twitching in the smallest of shrugs, "there wasn't any context or anything… I just, said the first thing that came to my head."_

 _"_ _And that was to call me?" There was no way of denying the smugness now._

 _"_ _Well, what would you have done then?" Dan questioned as he whipped his head around, eyebrows raised expectantly in Phil's direction._

 _Phil's smirk dropped._ _ **How hadn't he seen that coming?**_ _He could see the corner of Dan's lip curl, and the longer he inwardly panicked for a response, the closer Phil knew he was getting to having proven Dan's point. There was enough mischief glinting in those wide eyes of his for Phil to know that they both really knew what Phil's honest response would be; after all, that_ _ **was**_ _Dan's point._

 _"_ _I," Phil announced finally, only just realising that he'd been blushing furiously under the pressure of both the question and Dan's gaze. "I would call an ambulance."_

 _Dan snorted, and Phil knew that he'd won. He basked in the triumph as Dan muttered, "For god's sake," amidst breathy laughter._

 _It was only minutes later, once silence had again consumed the room as they were both absorbed by the realms of the internet, when Dan spoke up again. This time, however, his voice was soft, and he didn't look up towards Phil; rather, he stayed focused on his phone. "I would call you because… you're cool, and, you're my only friend, and…" His breath hitched. "And you mean a lot to me."_

 _Phil's eyes could've drilled through the screen of the laptop with the intensity of his gaze, not daring to look across towards that curly mop of hair. "Really?" The whispering wasn't necessary, but apparently he'd forgotten how to breathe._

 _"_ _Yeah."_

 _Phil nodded slowly. "Alright then." Another nod. "Good."_

 _Out of the corner of his eye, Phil could swear he saw Dan nod as well. "Good," the younger repeated firmly, and Phil suddenly couldn't stop smiling._

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

Being in the place of unknowing is dangerous. It works three ways: the first is probably the least harmful. That way is, of course, remaining oblivious. That's usually the safest way to avoid getting hurt. It's not as fruitful, because it's renouncing the ability to learn from any sort of experience or knowledge – but still. It's somewhat peaceful. Then there's the second way: escaping the plague of unknowing - having the choice to 'know'. To be told the things that had previously been hidden, but only through seeking it out. The art of consensual knowledge. It's risky: but then again, who says there isn't positive knowledge?

…But, come on, when are these sorts of things ever positive? I mean really?

"And that brings me on to the last of the three segways," Dan exclaimed aloud, bringing voice to his inward thoughts. "The one where you don't have a fucking choice as to whether you want to know if there's any cereal left for you or not, because a certain, Philip Lester," Dan rolled his eyes and dropped the empty cereal box onto the kitchen worktop as he pronounced the name with grand (and probably unnecessary) exaggeration, "decides that you can't _remain_ _oblivious_ to the lack of cereal, nor can you _choose to know_ about its rather suspicious talent of disappearing. No, instead, I find myself having the truth _forced_ upon me, in the shape of an empty cereal box." Dan sighed, leaning against the edge of the kitchen worktop, staring at the offending box of cardboard in his hand. "This is why Phil can't have nice things." He added as an afterthought, "And also why _Dan_ can't have nice things: what the hell am I supposed to eat now? I can't just wait until that idiot gets back here to actually eat something, but how can I eat food when everything we need is what he's gone out to buy in the first place?"

That morning, Phil had announced that their kitchen was a barren wasteland and had vaguely informed a sleepy Dan that he had to take a trip 'into the outside world' before he disappeared from the door frame of Dan's room. Dan, of course, chose to fall back asleep, because what was the point in waking up if there was nothing to eat? Eventually, however, hunger had gotten the better of him and Dan could stay in bed no longer, so he'd padded into the kitchen praying that Phil had been exaggerating to be funny.

It turned out that the kitchen was, in fact, a barren wasteland. What Dan probably should've expected was that Phil had snacked on the last dregs of _his_ cereal.

"And now I'm talking to myself," Dan realised, "great. You run out of food and suddenly you become a delirious madman throwing around empty boxes of cereal with a rumbling stomach whilst stood in your pyjamas and… I really must've been out of it last night to put _these_ on," he frowned. His gaze had only just snagged onto the sight of two violently bright coloured socks, one yellow and the other red. "Do I even own these…? Unless it was Phil who did this." Dan wiggled his luminously-clad toes and nodded to himself. "Yeah, it was Phil."

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

This was nice. This was good. Air in the lungs; breeze-tousled hair; senses sharpened by the chill of a bright autumn morning: it was a great decision for him to have gone outside on this day of all days. A little bit of food shopping was the perfect excuse.

…Okay, so maybe his actions were fuelled by guilt.

Phil chewed at his bottom lip as he imagined Dan waking up to find nothing in the kitchen save a lonesome box of cereal, left in the absence of its own contents. _Delicious_ _contents_ , Phil corrected himself – and he couldn't help it. He giggled.

To give himself credit, Phil had scrounged through every one of their kitchen cupboards for an alternative. It wasn't his fault there was literally nothing else. Besides, surely Phil deserved a small treat: only yesterday, hadn't he dragged a snoozing Dan up off the sofa and away from the still-playing television and helped him to his bedroom? He'd even offered up the comfiest and most thermal of his own socks (mismatched though they were), _and_ two of his blankets, because he knew how cold Dan's room could get sometimes. So really, a handful of Dan's cereal was a fair exchange.

The shop Phil was going into was thankfully only just down the road from their apartment, so it didn't take long for him to be walking through the automatic doors. He grabbed a basket and began to wander. Having only just moved places a few months back, Dan and Phil were still familiarising themselves with their new surroundings (albeit their new place not actually being too far from the previous apartment), so it was safe to say Phil got lost in the various aisles of this unfamiliar shop multiple times.

"Excuse me?" It was rare that Phil would call to the staff for help, but then again he usually had Dan with him. The lady he caught the attention of was middle aged, with a short bob and crow's feet crinkling at the corners of her eyes, to which Phil almost felt relieved – particularly when she beamed at him. That was reassuring. Judging the personality of strangers was always guesswork: but it would seem that, for now, he was in safe hands.

The woman was tiny in height compared to him once he'd walked over, and Phil quenched the urge to bend his knees. He was far too used to doing that for fans at meet ups and for photos, from wanting to be able to hug them like a normal person as opposed to being an awkwardly tall giant. "Sorry," he said quickly with an apologetic smile to match, "but I don't suppose you could tell me where the cereal aisle is?" He'd come in for other food as well, obviously, but he'd be signing his own death warrant if he forgot to purchase the very thing that he'd escaped the apartment for.

"Oh, just follow me," the woman – Jane, Phil noted by the name tag – said, and she led him along the cream tiled flooring, passing aisle after aisle. Phil peered through each one with an innocent intrigue as he obediently walked beside Jane. Something, however, did cause him to frown, because he could glimpse some sort of commotion going on at the front of the shop, where the row of checkout desks were. Not one to tame his imagination, Phil pondered on wild theories as they walked, the basket bouncing against the side of his leg. Before he could really develop any of his ideas, though, Jane faltered. Apparently she'd also caught sight of the incident up at the front of the shop floor.

"Ah, if you just go past the next two aisles, then you should find what you're looking for," Jane said distractedly, giving Phil a smile.

"Thank you very much," Phil replied, and watched her walk down the aisle she'd stopped at, seeing her head towards whatever was going on. He quickly backtracked to her final instructions before he forgot them, and made to walk as she'd said.

The ringing of an alarm made him drop the basket (of which, from that moment, lay abandoned and slightly dented for the next few days at that same spot). He winced at the clatter, and made to pick it up, but the blaring alarm of the shop superseded not only the sound of his clumsiness but also his priorities. Food was no longer on his mind (ironically, given how it surrounded him on various tiers of shelving units); instead, his focus was on escape. An alarm in a public place is never a good sign.

It had to be some sort of hazard. A public danger of some kind – the first thing that spread to Phil's mind was fire, but he couldn't see or smell any burning. Perhaps it's related to the commotion up at the front, Phil considered; in which case, his only means of exit was likely to be blocked.

But surely that only emphasised the need to take the risk?

Phil spun on his heel and started towards the nearest aisle, wariness caging his every move. There was nothing that could have kept him oblivious to the obvious danger implied in the alarm, and he couldn't exactly chose to linger at the back of the shop until all was declared safe. He had no choice but to make this attempt towards escape, and towards the knowledge of whatever the hell was actually going on. A strong part of him feared to learn of what the problem was, but there was no way of avoiding it. He simply had to put one foot after another and take the longest walk down an aisle he'd ever experienced, his thoughts constantly going back to the suspicious commotion he'd glimpsed earlier.

There was shouting, and that confirmed more than anything that the alarm was no accident. One voice stood out from the rest, but they didn't sound scared. They sounded angry and assertive. Phil slowed his pace even further as he reached the end of the aisle, and inhaled deeply before risking a glance towards the checkout area.

"Open it up!" The man wasn't as tall as Phil, but he was definitely much more of a threat. Spittle flew amidst his yells, his expression knotted in utter contempt. His jacket was worn and his shirt was plain, the look complete with dark wrinkled jeans and scuffed shoes. If anything, he looked like any other normal guy. Until he brought up his hand and Phil saw the glint of silver catch the light.

 _He's got a gun._ The blood drained from his face, and he almost collapsed. _A gun._ His legs, his hands, his whole body was trembling but he couldn't bring himself to move: he was frozen in complete fear. Phil sank slowly to the floor, keeping partially hidden by the corner of the aisle he had walked down. _Breathe. There's gotta be a way around this; a way to get out of here._

 _I could die here._ Phil's breathing snagged in his chest. _I could actually die, here, today, moments from now. I could die and it would all be over and everything would end and I'd never live a whole life and I'd never grow old and…_

Phil's eyes stung with the oncoming verge of tears. He hugged himself as he desperately tuned out of the man's crazed shouting, and his fingers grazed the shape of his phone sticking out of his jeans pocket. The action gave him pause, and he shakily prised his arms apart to glance down at his phone.

 _What if he called…?_

A sudden gunshot jolted Phil where he sat as the echo rang out through the shop: the vibrations of sound crackled over Phil's skin like a wave and sent goose bumps prickling in its wake. The hairs at the nape of his neck stood up and suddenly this became very, very real.

He looked over towards what he could see of the checkout area from his current vantage point, where other customers and staff dotted around had ducked or dropped to the floor at the sound of open fire (if they hadn't been at the floor already, like Phil). Some were hiding behind each of the checkouts – one such person being none other than the lady who'd helped him earlier: Jane. Her face was white and her hands were climbing into her hair, her back leaning against the curve of the checkout as she quietly sobbed.

Phil peered around the edge of the aisle for a brief second, just to see where the man was currently focusing his attention (and where the gun was being aimed). It looked as though he'd fired the shot up to the ceiling – perhaps to gain attention or fear? _He'd definitely gotten the latter_. Seeing that the man wasn't looking his way, Phil made a split-second decision and moved from his current hideout, crawling instead towards the checkout where Jane was.

Out of nowhere there came the instinct to be reassuring. As Phil drew up his knees and sat beside the crying woman, he whispered, "Hey, it's me again. Look, it's gonna be alright, okay? We just need to get as many people as we can to the exit. If we don't bother the guy, then he should leave us alone…" He couldn't even convince himself. Who knew what was going on in that man's head? Anyone could be a target.

"The alarm system… triggered the lock down of the shop… because it was the emergency alarm," Jane managed to respond.

"But – but surely there's some way for us to get out of here?"

"The back exit is through the Staff Only door, which – which needs a pin code to be opened… the front exit is closer, but with the automatic doors… they'll have closed for the lock down; they'd need to be broken to get through."

They were interrupted by a loud shout. "Someone start opening these fucking tills. I'll shoot whoever tries to get out of here."

Jane shuddered. "The only way those tills can be opened without force is by the keys that the staff who manage their designated tills have on them," she whispered to Phil, her voice thick with tears.

"How long will that take for him to work that out?"

"Not very."

Phil exhaled. "Okay." _Limited options, then._ He didn't understand how he was being somewhat level-headed within his own terror, but he gripped tight onto the concept in the hope he'd gain a potential idea from it. "He doesn't care who he shoots, and the front exit is our best option," he said carefully as his mind raced. "Which means… Which means that we need a distraction, and… we need something that can break glass."

"A distraction?"

"To stop the guy from shooting anyone who attempts to leave." It was a ridiculously basic plan, with countless 'what ifs' and ways it could go wrong, but what else did they have?

"What about the police," Jane suggested, seeming to feel equally doubtful on the success of Phil's plan. "Can't we call them?"

"We could, but we could all be dead by the time they arrive." It was blunt, but it was also scarily true, so Phil couldn't feel too bad for pointing it out. Moving on, he asked, "What could we use to break the glass?"

"A strong enough kick should break it," Jane said, though she didn't sound overly confident.

"'Should'?"

"We've never needed to break it down before."

"Let's just hope it's enough, then." As he said this, a thought occurred to Phil which terrified him. "I've got an idea. It's not good but it's the best we have."

"Which is?"

"We kill two birds with one stone. I distract the guy by kicking the door down."

Jane looked horrified. "You can't do that!"

"Look, when I'm distracting him, you can use the opportunity to grab a couple of other peoples' attention; hopefully, if I get the door open, then people can attempt to escape more safely, and with a higher chance of actually getting out. We don't have time to think of other options, and we can't ask anyone for a better idea. This is all we have."

"But… I'm a member of staff, I can distract him with how to open the…"

"I'm sorry," Phil said, and in an instant he was up on his feet. He barely had time to register where the front door was before he was running. There was an uproar of shouts and gasps as he weaved around the checkout desks and headed towards the exit. He'd never been one for running but this was something else entirely – but he managed to reach the door. With no time to lose, Phil kicked at it a good couple of times before he heard the sound of the gun being clicked into being ready at the pull of a trigger. _One. More. Kick_ , he thought desperately, each pause a kick adding to the webbing of cracks he'd splintered into the centre of one of the automatic doors; _just one more should –_

 _BANG._

Shards of glass rained onto his shoes as the bottom half of the glass door shattered, the upper half clinging to the frame for dear life but now frosted over from the repetitive impact of Phil's foot. Phil himself stumbled, barely able to keep standing.

Already there was blood staining his shirt.

Phil sank to his knees as other brave souls began to rise to their feet and take the risk of attempting escape, now that the door was partially open. More gunshots rang through the air, and there was screaming and shouting and glass crunching under boots and it was all just one, big mess of noise.

Phil had never thought of what it would feel like to be shot, but it was one of the most numbing and blinding of pains. Every inch of him was on fire, and at the same time he could sense his insides shutting down: the need for sleep overwhelmed him and his eyes itched to just close and take him away from all this noise…

But he couldn't. He didn't want to die. Not here. Not now. There was still time. He could call for help, he could call for an ambulance on his…

 _He had his phone with him_.

Phil choked, stifling pain as he shifted to get the phone (amazingly still intact) out from the pocket of his jeans. Blind to what was going on around him, he clicked the screen on and saw his and Dan's faces staring back at him. Grinning like idiots, the pair of them. Phil swiped the screen and, without really knowing what he was doing, he searched for the Contacts List.

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

"Don't you bloody die on me, I swear to god. We've been through so much at this point and you can't just – shit!" Dan threw the controller onto the sofa as he glared at the screen, unimpressed by the taunting words shining 'Game Over' in red, serif font. There were always battles which took over a hundred attempts until there was any hope of success. Dan, in this particular instance, was still stuck on the 'What-the-ever-loving-fluff-is-going-on-and-what-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do' stage. It was a stressful place to be.

No longer distracted by colourful pixels for a good few seconds, Dan's stomach sought the opportunity to growl, to which Dan grimaced and tossed his head back to the cushions of the sofa in defeat. Not only had he been completely wrecked in a virtual sense, but he was also utterly vanquished by the wrath of hunger and he had nowhere else to turn – until a vibration started to echo in the room. Dan lifted his head, to see his phone lighting up. With a groan he reached over for it, glancing at the caller; the sight buoyed him into pressing 'Accept' and he put the phone on speaker before curling back up on the sofa, the phone perched beside him. Why waste effort in holding it when the tech could supply the resources for him to be incredibly lazy about the whole thing? Dan grinned as he heard the phone connect.

"Oh, there he is, the culprit of the reason why I'm literally starving."

"Hi, Dan…"

Something was wrong. Wasn't there? Dan had known Phil long enough to recognise a normal greeting from him on the phone, and that wasn't it. "You alright?" he asked, and immediately regretted it. Why was he worrying so much? Perhaps it was just the background noise interfering (which did admittedly sound kind of chaotic) or a problem with the connection or something as meagre to make Phil's voice sound questionable. So he quickly added, "The connection sounds pretty bad."

"Yeah… I think – maybe the signal's playing up…"

Dan chuckled. "How far did you go? You do remember that there's a shop down the road, right?"

"Obviously," Phil retorted, his breathing sounding hoarse. _No, it's just the ropey signal_ , Dan corrected, _stop being paranoid_. "I just, may have gotten… lost in the aisles…"

"Oh my god, I should have come with you."

"Yeah…" Phil's end of the line crackled sharply. "Ah, no; I mean, I'm fine. Really. I can handle it."

Dan's brow quirked. "Okay." He shifted on the sofa and sat himself back up upon seeing the game he'd ignored on the screen automatically take him back to the last save. He grappled for the controller, stabbed a finger onto the Menu button to pause it and then turned back to the phone. "So, are you planning to refund me on my cereal?"

"It was the first thing on my list." Dan could almost hear the smile in Phil's voice.

"Too damn right."

"I'm sorry."

Dan blinked, surprised for only a moment before finding the funny side. "You can't apologise if you don't mean it."

Even Phil laughed – or, at least, Dan assumed he did; it was difficult to tell with this crap phone line. "True," he admitted, and Dan was instantly picturing Phil's small, slightly sideward nod with closed eyes and lips pressed together, a guilty grin playing at the corner of his mouth. Dan shook away the image as Phil added, "But I am sorry."

Dan rolled his eyes. " _Sure_."

The phone line crackled with static and whatever other indecipherable background noise was coming from Phil's end. Dan wondered what background noise _Phil_ could hear from his end, if anything. The game, being paused, was silent, and the only noise Dan was making was in the absent-minded bobbing of the heel of his foot against the floor, and his hair as he carded his fingers through it, attempting to brush the wild curls from his eyes. Maybe _his_ voice was crackling with static.

"Dan, listen, I… I mean, my phone, is, um, pretty close to dying right now, so I can't stay long…"

"This is why you should charge your phone before leaving the house, "Dan pointed out.

"I'll remember that… for next time. By, hey, for now…" The static crackled as Phil (or the phone) shifted. "Don't miss me too much, okay?"

"You're only around the corner, Phil," Dan laughed. "My god." To be fair, though, he'd prefer to be talking to Phil from the other side of the sofa than like this.

"I know." There was a long pause, so much so that Dan was almost about to speak when Phil got there first. "Dan… I love you."

Dan froze. Those words, those three words; it was amazing the sort of power they held. Memories flooded back, of dangerous smirks and constant blushing and height differences and hand-holding and –

"What is with the sappiness today," he grinned, raising a brow as he inwardly fought the memories away. "I forgive you for leaving me with no food in the house, alright, is that what you want?"

"No…" There was another pause. "I just want you to know… that I love you."

(– and bed-sharing and stargazing and shoulders touching and smiling into kisses and –) Dan bit his lip and laughed softly. "Okay."

There was yet again another pause, which made Dan all the more wary. "Do you love me too?"

He could go along with whatever Phil was doing and be honest. He could... if he was feeling solemn. "Hmm," he pondered aloud in mock thought. "That depends on whether I get to eat anything today, Philip. Plus," he decided to add for re-establishment of their current banter, "you're kind of an idiot. How about I tell you when you get home?"

Phil giggled. "Is that your way of saying yes?"

"Shut up," Dan scoffed. "Look, be weirdly sappy away from the public domain and just get back here, ASAP." With no immediate reply, he finished, "I'll see you in a minute, okay? Bye." At that, Dan ended the call and retrieved the controller. "Right," he announced to himself, "One more try at this… and then Phil will be home. That's the theory, anyway. Gotta stick to it now that it's out in the open. And maybe you could try _not_ being completely useless," he said to his character frozen in stasis on the screen of the television, just as he clicked off the Menu screen. "We don't need any more Game Over's today."

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

Being oblivious is safer. Right?

Phil didn't know why he did it. Maybe there were lots of reasons. Maybe none of those counted and there were no reasons at all. That wasn't the point. The point was… he didn't tell him. Dan. He couldn't. It was too hard and too casual and too emotional and everything else all at once but none worse than too difficult to say goodbye. Which he hadn't.

He knew that he was losing a lot of blood. He could feel it, sticking to his shirt and oozing from the wound. It was too much blood. His vision was breaking out into spots and his mouth tasted eerily metallic and his head was pounding. There were others, too; others like him – dying… dead.

Was he dead? Not really. Not yet. Was he even dying? Phil didn't know. He didn't know what dying was meant to feel like. The only word he could think of to describe the feeling at this very moment was ' _unaccomplished'_. He doubted that was how he was supposed to feel, though.

Perhaps he should have told Dan. Perhaps there should have been tears and exclamations and swearing and promises and goodbyes. Dan had never really elaborated, all those years ago, what the conversation would need to involve – at least, if it were him dying. And that was the funny thing: the roles were reversed.

It wasn't funny.

It was unfair.

Not that the roles were reversed, of course. Just… timing. Time in general. He could have gone to the shops, yesterday, for instance. He could have used his hours more wisely over the years instead of those days when he lazed around, thinking he had all the time in the world. He could have spent more time with… Dan. He could have chosen to cower under the checkout desk and wait for someone else to risk their life first.

But there wasn't time to think about these things. There was only time to breathe… to blink… to stare at the lock screen of his phone.

"I called you," he said, his voice raspy. _He'd only just been talking to Dan on the phone; how had his throat tightened so much in the space of seconds?_ "There: I've completed that unspoken deal for you. You don't have to do it now." _Dan can't do it anyway if he's outlived me._ "I didn't know what to say... but I guess, that's because I really like you. I mean… cause, you're the most important… person, and… what can I say? Without wanting to say more?"

Phil wheezed, and knives seemed to claw through his chest. "It would've taken, too long to… explain everything, anyway. And you sounded so happy…" Phil's fingers were shaking violently and he was struggling to retain a grip on his phone. "Dan, I'm scared. I don't want to die." Tears dribbled down his face, cooling his enflamed cheeks. "I can't – I don't want to – it's _not fair_ ," he whispered. "I want to… to s-stay here, with you, and…" Phil exhaled slowly, dragging out his breath if only to savour more seconds.

The phone slipped out of his hand.

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

It was the fifteenth text he'd sent, and it hadn't even come up as being 'Read', let alone have any replies. To be fair, Phil had warned Dan of the low battery of his phone, but even so, this was ridiculous. Their last conversation had been _hours_ ago, with no response since. The only reason Dan hadn't gotten so worried until now was because he'd been too engrossed in playing video games.

 _It sounds bad when it's put like that._

When Dan had eventually closed up the game and switched back to the television, Phil's absence became glaringly apparent – to the point where Dan had actually gotten changed out of his pyjamas in case he needed to go out on a search.

"Shooter kills three and injures twelve in attempting to rob-"

"Whoa, no need for that," Dan exclaimed at the television, which had by default gone to the news channel but at a dangerous volume, since Dan had increased it for the benefit of the video game. He turned down the volume by a tad and stared blankly at the female reporter. "That's not gonna help me find Phil, is it?" He slapped his forehead. "Come on, Dan, we've talked about this: stop talking to yourself." Dan started to pace back and forth in front of the sofa, wringing the remote in his hands. "Right: so what _do_ I do? Surely Phil can't _still_ be at the same goddamn shop… but where else would he have gone? Besides, his phone was almost dead; he would've headed back here as soon as humanely possible. So… unless he is genuinely lost amidst the shopping aisles, then I have absolutely no idea where he is. Which means," he decided, nodding, "that it's the best place to start looking. Yeah." He disappeared off to his room and grabbed a pair of shoes, and by the time he was back in the living room, he had one shoe on and the other he was attempting to pull on whilst hopping.

Voices and sirens gave him pause and he looked up. "Oh crap, I've left the TV on… are they still harping on about the same story?" Dan frowned, mildly distracted – only to feel dread as he cottoned on to the footage.

"The shooter, who is still unknown, managed to evade the police surrounding the sight after-"

"Shit." Dan stared at the street being shown on the screen. "No, no, that's… that's the…" The screen conveniently changed to show the targeted shop, taped up and blocked off. "Fucking shit. _Phil_."

It was the same tape that he had glimpsed from the footage on the television. He recognised it, even if he'd only spared brief heart-thudding moments with his eyes glazed over, not even able to comprehend the images or words drilling from the screen. The words drilling through his head. What was it the reporter had said? A couple of people were dead, a few more injured?

The wind whipped through Dan's curls of hair, throwing strands wildly and cooling his burning forehead. One of his shoes was falling off – he hadn't tied the laces properly. He pressed on, ignorant of the pain digging into his heel and ankle.

The first thing to stab through his chest was the sight of the automatic door to the shop. It was in pieces on the floor, splinters cascading out onto the pavement and even out onto the road. Dan peered over the growing crowds, desperation starting to take hold. He couldn't see Phil anywhere.

Wailing made him wince, and Dan turned instinctively to the sound. There was a small baby, gripped tightly in the arms of a man probably in his thirties, clean shaven and sharp featured. His expression was a mask of absolute fear, and Dan could see the protective hold over the child may have been slightly too tight but he could understand. Fear made people oblivious to their actions, sometimes. Especially if it was fear for someone else, an unconditional love for someone else's safety. There were others around this man and child, all wearing similar expressions, their eyes dark and voices shaking. It clicked, then, and Dan's theory was confirmed as he observed closer upon them: grazes, cuts and bruises dappled this particular crowd.

Victims.

Dan headed over towards them, his head ducking up and down in the hope he'd catch a glimpse of the reason he was here: a familiar head of hair; a jacket he may or may not have borrowed once or twice; a glance of wide blue eyes brimming with fright but still blinking and looking and able to stare back into his own fearful eyes. Dan's fingers curled into his palms, his bottom lip trembling, fighting back the urge to call Phil's name because he knew that if he looked hard enough, he wouldn't need to shout it out, because he would find Phil. He _would._ It was as simple as that.

Dan froze under the innocent gaze of brown eyes like his own, and it took him a moment to drag himself from the watch of the young little girl, the small baby, in the arms of what Dan had presumed to be her father. Fear shouldn't be worn on so young a face, Dan thought bitterly, his shoulders slumping in a defeated sort of way. _How could someone go out of their way to purposefully damage so many minds just for their own gain?_

Dan cleared his throat and glanced up at the father, and he made to speak. He didn't know what he was going to say… maybe something along the lines of "Have you seen a guy around here about my height? Black hair, probably in jeans; he's got a fringe that's swept to one side…" He might have even included various hand gestures, if that could somehow get his message better across – but, as it happened, Dan didn't get chance to ask. His words got lodged in his throat, and when the man noticed his presence Dan could see that even in the smallest of chances that the man _had_ seen Phil, then he wouldn't have it retained in his memory. He was far too distracted with a far more plaguing concern, which he chose to relay to Dan simply because he was stood there.

"There's still people in there," the man said, nodding towards the shop. He was swaying his arms slightly, perhaps as a subconscious attempt to soothe his child. "My son – when the guy started shooting he – my son, he… he disappeared and I didn't see him leave the place… but I can't get back in there…"

 _There were still people in the shop, potentially alive._ Dan swung his gaze over the wave of the targeted crowd, deciding in a split second that if he couldn't see Phil one more time, then that there was the only one explanation left as to his whereabouts. At no sight of Phil, Dan nodded, a flicker of determination running through his mind.

"I told them, the police, I said I needed to go back in there, but they stopped me; it's too dangerous, apparently, and they're waiting for ambulances to arrive…"

Dan nodded again, and his feet started moving of their own accord. He was walking, his mind focused, the world blurring and fading around him as he put one foot in front of the other.

The misty shapes of black and yellow refined themselves into the forms of policemen as they started to shift and direct their stance towards him: they'd noticed how close he was walking to the tape with no apparent signs of stopping.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step back."

Dan blinked, and stared at the cop. His throat was dry. "There – there's other people still in there," he said.

"Please stand away from the tape, sir."

Dan tried again. "There's still people inside, someone needs to go in and… what if there's people injured in there…?"

The second policeman intervened. "I'm afraid you have to wait until the ambulances get here. We're sending trained people in right now but this isn't open to the public." The two policemen were stood side by side, directly in front of Dan and separated from him only by the curling police tape that blocked off the shop.

Dan waved a distressed hand towards the shop. "But no one's gone in there to help anyone!"

"Sir, please take a step back."

His jaw twitched as Dan gritted his teeth and held back a groan. He looked back to where the man and his child had been, to see them watching him desperately, hopefully. Dan sucked in his bottom lip, biting down on it before throwing his gaze to the ground. He considered asking the police again, but instead found himself spinning on his heel and walking back to the group of shoppers that had managed to get out. There was something in the way he walked, like he wasn't quite there, like he was a ghost, or a shadow of himself. It was a familiar feeling, and that only made things worse for his already spiralling thoughts.

His feet brought him back to the man and the little girl. "Did you – did you happen to see a guy in there… around my age? Similar height? He – he, erm, he has black hair, with a fringe sort of to the side…" It would seem that desperation was an easy cloak to don: only moments ago had he told himself that it would be pointless asking this guy for help. His sentence trailed to an unfinished end, broken off and abandoned. Dan wondered if he looked like these other people, the ones who'd actually been in there, who now looked so terrified and lost in their own selves. Were his eyes dark and fearful, like those whispering group of teens a couple of yards ahead? Was his face white with shock, like the men and women stood in staff uniform? Was he shaking, like the pockets of families clinging to each other with white-knuckled grips?

"It was such a stupid thing for him to do, I should've grabbed him…" A woman was weeping, her voice muffled by her hand being clasped over her mouth. She looked guilty, somehow. She was one of the staff members, going by her clothes.

"What, he just dashed off, did he? I mean I saw a figure, but with the shooting and everything… and it all happened so fast…"

"You can't blame yourself for it," said another of the staff ladies, wrapping an arm over the first woman's shoulders.

"That must've taken some serious guts," one of the male staff exhaled, staring towards the shop. "And to manage to break the door like that – a lot of us probably wouldn't be stood here otherwise."

Being out of the loop, Dan had only guesswork to go on, but it sounded as though someone had broken the door open, and risked their life doing so. How they managed that alone overwhelmed Dan, but to think; they had done that for the lives of everyone in the shop. Of course, it could have been blind fear and the need to get themselves out, but it would seem (from the snippets of conversation) that the guy had hoped to be of help for everyone else… the woman who seemed guilty must know the most about it, after having mentioned wanting to stop him from going ahead… maybe the guy had planned to break the door open? Dan exhaled deeply, lost in awe. He doubted he'd ever be able to commit to such a selfless act.

Sirens wailed in the distance and Dan's hopes buoyed somewhat. He turned in sync with the crowd to see a trail of ambulances slow to a stop on one side of the road. Immediately medics spilled out and swarmed over, some going to commune with the police and others headed towards those who'd been victimised in the crime. Dan watched helplessly, barely managing to keep himself from being swept away by the current of people moving around him. Instinctively his eyes scanned every face, every flicker of movement that could potentially resemble Phil. It was becoming increasingly difficult now though, with everyone caught in the bustle and voices growing in volume: medics calming people, passers-by asking questions, victims of all ages crying or pleading or explaining their side to the events that had passed.

One such young woman was relaying to one of the medics amidst shaky sobs. "My mum… she was shot in the shoulder and I couldn't get her to stand back up… please…"

Dan's stomach spun at the reminder: people had _died_. Cold blooded murder. The reporter had mentioned a number, an amount of deaths they knew of so far…

Hang on. The news reporters _knew_ how many people were confirmed dead so far. The only way they could have known was by having _searched_ the place. Dan's face fell and with a new found irritation he stormed back over to the police tape.

"Sir, please make way for the-"

"How many are in there," Dan interrupted, his gaze fierce. "How many people died?"

The policeman faltered, and the policewoman stood next to him cleared her throat. "Three, so far, that we've found."

 _Finally, someone helpful._ Dan pressed on. "And how many alive?"

"We think just over ten, but we can't yet be certain."

"Is there someone there around my age, my height? Black hair, fringe… he – I know him, he – he's a friend of mine, and I know that he came here to this shop earlier today and he hasn't gotten back home and I can't find him anywhere else and… I think he's still in there."

The woman nodded. "We're sending in medics, and now that we've cleared risk of immediate danger, we're working on bringing people out of there. But I'm afraid you have to wait, because the doors have been smashed into and we can't put the public at risk. I'm sorry."

He didn't care that the door was a risk. He would walk right on past them now, and crawl through into the shop, if only he wasn't so unsure about Phil's whereabouts. Yes, everything seemed to point to the fact that Phil was still stuck in the shop, but he could potentially be outside somewhere; Dan might have just missed glimpsing him, or looked down at the wrong moment… been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dan just had to wait until he was certain before he did anything rash (that was what Phil always told him, anyway. Apparently he acted too impulsively). That poignant advice and the fact that Phil had to be _somewhere_ here seemed to be his only anchor right now. And it was true: Phil could only either be stood outside here, fate preventing them from noticing the other, or he was inside the shop, waiting for help. If anything, he'd probably be looking out for other people in there with him – Phil was like that. Dan was far too used to Phil taking the lead whenever he saw someone else struggling. He was one of those rare, beautiful human beings that genuinely cared enough to look out for others before themselves, to selflessly take on another's problems in an attempt to make them better, never looking to gain anything himself other than to see the other person happy and –

Dan's heart stopped. _Phil was selfless enough to put other's lives before his own._

"Ph- Phil…" Dan breathed, just as a sharp breeze clipped at his shoulder. _He wouldn't have done it. He was selfless, but that – that was… insane. And to have kicked the door open…_ "Phil." Dan glanced up towards the shop and then down towards the police tape brushing against his thighs. "Phil…" _wouldn't be able to smash a door down. Where would he start? His limbs were practically spaghetti: even despite their recent uptake of exercise._ Dan shook his head, shook away those distracting thoughts and focused again on the police tape.

 _Fuck it._

Bowing down, Dan swiftly ducked under the tape and righted himself back up on the other side, with no excuses to give the sudden onslaught of police save for one word, one name, on his lips. Arms barred his way, hands tugged at him to stop but he mindlessly batted them away.

He caught sight of body bags and stretchers in the corner of his eye and Dan's desperation soared. He looked to the broken automatic door to see a gaping hole in its place. When they'd taken out the upper half of the door's remains, Dan had no idea. He hadn't been paying attention. He wasn't paying attention now, either.

Except for this. A group of medics walked as one out from the shadows of the shop, clearly weighted down and struggling. A form was brought into the midst and Dan could swear his lip was bleeding from him biting down on it so hard. "Phil?" It didn't matter that his attempt was pathetic, that his voice was lost to the hands of the breeze. He wouldn't even care if his mouth was covered: Dan would still be screaming Phil's name in his head. The figure was laid onto the floor and it turned out to be a woman, profusely bleeding and unnaturally still – at least, that was how it looked from this distance. Dan's eyes snagged again upon more medics, less this time, probably because the next couple of bedraggled people seemed just able to walk or stand for themselves. Dan scanned them all. None of them were Phil.

The next victim to be drawn out through the shop entrance had already been placed on a stretcher, hence the collective surrounding of medics attending to the figure. Through them Dan could just about note the form of the person – but again, it couldn't have been Phil. The person wasn't tall enough (and Dan would know, he'd seen Phil lying down enough times). Dan's brow knitted as he watched the medics, and he couldn't understand whether they presumed the person they'd just carried out to be gone or still clinging to life. A couple from the group disappeared back towards the shop and suddenly Dan's blood drained from his face. He'd made a mistake.

The figure being flocked wasn't lying down; their form was crooked and uneven, their height distorted, seemingly shorter than they actually were. Their clothes were dark and, as Dan stared, the breeze ruffled a head of straight black hair, a side-swept fringe being tossed up into the breeze.

"Phil," Dan said, and he wanted to doubt the very idea the moment the name came to him because those medics did not look like they believed the guy before them to be in any way healthy. He started blinking furiously; Dan licked his lips in a habit of uncontrollable nerves and got a metallic aftertaste on his tongue, which he decidedly ignored under the pounding of a growing headache. Instead he pushed aside all rationality and called out again, louder. " _Phil_." He'd forgotten about the police surrounding him, who now tightened their grip on his arms to try and stop him from having moved instinctively forward. He tried to shake them off. "No, you don't – you don't understand, that… that's my… he's my friend, he… Phil? Phil, come on, you… no please just listen I need to see if it's him! I need to know that's my friend, he – Phil! Phil, it's me, it's Dan; just… _just let me see him!_ "

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

The apartment was silent. He'd been stood at the entrance, the door having closed long ago, and just stayed there. Frozen. Silent. A part of him was waiting for a sound, to hear noise from somewhere else in the apartment, to see the cause of the noise and grin because the figure making the racket had his fingers curled over his mouth and such an innocent guilt to him that Dan wouldn't be able to stay serious at him.

Phil.

Dan looked down at his hands. There was blood darkening the lines on his skin, staining his fingernails. It wasn't his blood – well, excluding the small cuts along the palm of his right hand… that was his, from the shattered glass. Dan looked away from his trembling hands but didn't know where to latch his gaze onto instead. He didn't want to look at anything. He wanted distractions, but nothing was good enough. The one thing he refused to do was close his eyes, because then he'd see Phil, and he'd see blood and debris and a phone with its battery at a pretty decent level because Phil had been lying when he'd said that his phone was close to dying.

Because he hadn't been talking about the phone.

Dan exhaled sharply, and immediately broke down into tears.

 **oooOOOoooOOOooo**

 _I don't want to die._

Phil gasped, gulping down oxygen as his chest heaved. He felt dizzy, like he'd severely lost his balance all of a sudden. If he moved, then he was certain he would throw up. Everything felt distorted and wrong, and his whole body was numb, tingling slightly as though he had pins and needles rippling across the entirety of his skin.

He blinked, slowly, and tried squinting at the brightness surrounding him. Had his glasses fallen off? Phil tried to look around, but as he did he caught the glint of his glasses and realised they were still on his face. Confused, he blinked again: the brightness was starting to dim, the ethereal fog fading away into nothing as his surroundings sharpened into clarity.

He'd thought he was sitting down at first, maybe lying down; but it turned out he was standing. Phil shifted his footing experimentally and winced as the tingling got worse from him moving. He glanced back up, looking around and focusing upon the various figures that he was starting to be able to see. There were _loads_ of people: groups of injured, crying people and others that looked confused about whatever was going on and others in uniform, police and medics.

 _What was going on?_

Phil strained his memory, and only managed to recall a shop, a phone and a gun when he paused, frowning. Had he just seen…?

 _No. It can't have been. Why would he be here?_

The medics were swarming amidst the crowds now, going to peoples' aid, inspecting those with minor injuries, cuts and bruises and the like. No one was walking over to him, though, which Phil found quite bizarre. He could feel some sort of pain (though it was still obscured by that weird numb feeling) and he was pretty sure he'd been involved in the incident that was requiring such dire attention from the emergency services. Phil turned his head around, hoping for someone to notice him, to help him out… when his eyes latched onto the shop door.

He remembered that door. He remembered kicking at it… Phil glanced at his leg to feel a sudden inflammation of pain around that area, apparently only a feeling concentrated there now because he remembered it happening. It didn't look like there was anything wrong with his leg though, so perhaps it was just bruised underneath his jeans.

When Phil next looked up, it was to receive a bombardment of thoughts. His shopping experience came back to him fully detailed now, and Phil stifled a gasp as the post-event trauma started to sink in. But rather than ponder on that further, his mind went to a blank again upon seeing a face he thought he'd only imagined only a couple of minutes ago.

Dan was stood several yards away from where Phil could see him. His whole posture screamed tense, with bunched up shoulders and fingers curling into his palms, his face stricken with worry. Phil nervously licked his lips, knowing he was in pain but also knowing he had to get Dan's attention. He gritted his teeth and started making the numbing walk over towards his friend.

His body stung with the uncomfortable feeling of pins and needles only rising the more he walked. He was pretty sure he was subconsciously limping, too, but Phil didn't pay his leg any mind – not when he was focusing so much concentration on reaching Dan.

Phil tried calling out to Dan, but the younger didn't seem to hear him. Only when Phil was almost opposite him, arms outstretched in relief and the urge to hug Dan, did Dan actually make some sort of response. But Phil immediately knew something was wrong, because Dan didn't greet him with any mutual relief. Instead, his face drained of any colour and his eyes widened.

"Ph- Phil…" Dan breathed, and even that wasn't enough to buoy Phil because Dan wasn't looking anywhere near his direction. Phil's arms dropped, one hand brushing against Dan's shoulder but Dan paid it no heed. Instead, he looked up towards the shop entrance, staring in a newfound horror upon the broken remains of the door. "Phil." He then looked towards the police tape that he was stood in front of, and frowned at it. "Phil…"

Phil cleared his throat, feeling all realms of fear in the underlying knowledge that something was definitely wrong here. "Hey, Dan, I'm here…?"

Dan moved so suddenly that Phil jumped; one moment Dan was frozen in shock, and the next he was ducking under the police tape. Immediately the police warding off the area jolted into action.

"No, Dan, what are you doing? Dan," Phil exclaimed, his throat burning. He refrained from stepping in to help, however, perhaps from fear of what was going on in the first place, why Dan couldn't register his existence. The police pinned Dan by his arms, holding him back as Dan continued to mutter Phil's name over and over, his eyes misting over but face set in determination, in a stubbornness that felt so weirdly familiar for such an unfamiliar situation.

A group of medics walked out slowly, carefully, from the shop; the door had since been cleared of the most of the glass still dangling from the frame, but Phil was more worried that seeing this would only fuel Dan to run right through and into the shop itself. Panic set in as he saw a thin line of dark blood dribbling down Dan's chin.

"Phil?" Dan was getting steadily louder, and still Phil attempted to reply.

"Dan, please just calm down, I'm right here! You're scaring me, Dan…"

A strained relief bloomed briefly across Dan's face, and for a moment Phil thought he'd finally gotten through to the young man; only, he realised, the relief was from being able to see the figure that the medics had been carrying out. It was a woman, profusely bleeding. Phil's stomach twisted at the sight. Why was Dan so sure that Phil was still in the shop, anyway? There were crowds of people around who'd clearly suffered through the ordeal and had made it through; why hadn't Dan thought to search for him there?

More people were led out of the shop, these people looking more like those that were being tended to beyond the police tape. That soothed Phil slightly, knowing that not everyone still trapped inside was fatally injured. It was horrifying seeing that one woman covered in blood, let alone… Phil faltered, a particular thought coming back to haunt him. _He'd_ been shot _._ He could remember it happening, back when he'd been kicking the door down in desperation to make an escape route for everyone in the shop. He'd felt the bullet puncture his chest. _He'd felt it, and he'd collapsed from it._ So how was he here? How had he managed to pick himself back up and be left alone by the medics who should be swarming to him to check him over? Surely it was obvious, surely he was like the woman was, with blood spattered across his chest and –

Phil didn't even have a moment to glance over himself, or even question why the irritating numbing, tingling sensation was seemingly stopping any of his wounds from causing him absolute blinding pain, because Dan had started shouting.

The police were struggling to keep a hold on him. In any moment Phil was certain that Dan was going to break free from them – although for how long, and for what cause?

"No, you don't – you don't understand, that… that's my… he's my friend, he… Phil?" Dan pushed away the hands of the police and stepped forward, straining against the attempts to keep him still. Phil's eyes brimmed with tears and he let them fall because he was so lost, so helpless when unable to understand what on earth Dan was doing, because Phil was _here,_ he was _right here_. "Phil, come on, you… no please just listen I need to see if it's him!" Phil frowned. _If it's him?_ What did that mean? Phil glanced towards where Dan was looking, to see that the woman being attended now had someone else being placed beside her, someone curled up awkwardly upon a stretcher. "I need to know that's my friend, he – Phil!" Phil stared at the figure just as Dan was. _No_. _It didn't make any sense, that couldn't be…_ "Phil, it's me, it's Dan; just… _just let me see him!_ "

Dan tore away from the police and immediately set off running. Phil watched, hopeless, his heart thudding and his mind whirring with complications. He neared towards the police tape, stopping inches before it out of fear. He didn't want to see the figure. He was compelled, of course he was, but…

"No… no, no, it's not you, it can't be you, come on Phil, please…" Dan had stopped right over the figure, clearly oblivious to the medics already around the victim (although some had disappeared to go back into the shop). Seeing Dan bring a hand over his mouth in horror was the last straw for Phil, who ducked under the tape and slowly made his way over, the police paying no attention to him whatsoever. Dan collapsed by the side of the figure, and by the time Phil reached him Dan's face was completely white. Through his fingers, Dan continued to speak. "Phil, come on, you need to be okay for me, yeah? Promise me, come on, you can't… look, just open your eyes. Please. Wake up."

"I _am_ awake, Dan," Phil whispered, voice thick with emotion as he remained determined for Dan to just look up and see that he was right there. "I promise, I'm alright, I…" He faltered as Dan's hands moved towards the figure on the stretcher.

There was a moment's pause where Dan exhaled shakily before he moved the last inch and pressed his trembling hand to the figure's chest – and only then did Phil decide to tear his gaze away from Dan and look down at the figure. Dan uncurled his fingers as he flattened his palm out and shifted closer, almost leaning his head to one side, the rest of the word meaningless to him. _He was checking for a pulse_. Phil, however, was also lost to the world, but in his case it was for quite a different, far more freakishly surreal, matter.

That was his face. There was no denying it; it seemed slightly distorted, because Phil had never looked at it from this angle before (save from photos and videos), but it was definitely him. The black hair was unkempt and the fringe all over the place across a deathly pale forehead and closed eyes, which Phil knew that if they were open, they would be blue. Glasses didn't perch on his nose, however, like they were for him in the present sense, which was odd. Phil shook himself; why worry about the glasses? Why were the glasses important? Wasn't the fact that he was essentially staring at himself a slightly higher priority to investigate?

"No, I'm just – I can't be doing it properly," Dan said, as Phil zoned back into Dan's words, and he realised that Dan was being ignorant. He couldn't feel a pulse, then, despite being determined that there was one. Dan pressed his hand tighter against Phil's chest, and Phil grimaced to see the top he'd been wearing – the top he _was_ wearing – was soaked in blood. Dan didn't care about that right now, however, but he pulled away his hand all the same. "Phil I swear to god you need to wake up. Just wake up. Wake _up_ ," Dan insisted, his voice breaking. "You can't do this, you…" Dan's eyes widened (how that was possible Phil had no idea) as something caught his attention. "Oh my god…"

Phil peered to where Dan was now looking, and subsequently recoiled.

His leg was in shreds. The material was too dark for the blood to stand out, but enough could be seen through the rips of the trouser leg. Shards of glass embedded his skin and the way the leg was bent was enough to show that it wasn't quite in the right place… perhaps he'd landed awkwardly upon collapsing. Dan waved his hands desperately over the leg, wanting to help but not knowing how. Phil could hear Dan's erratic breathing from where he was stood, could see the adrenaline and grief rolling off him in waves. Dan bit at his already bleeding lip as he warily moved his hand and made to remove the nearest shard, but he grimaced and pulled his hand back at the last moment. "Phil, it – it's gonna be okay, I… I'm gonna make it okay, you… just…" Dan, with a knitted brow and wobbling bottom lip, quickly moved his hand towards the offending debris and pulled it out, dropping the bloody piece of glass onto the floor with a clatter as he tried not to gag.

Phil's vision swam as Dan continued to reach over to pick out smaller shards from his leg, cutting his own hand accidentally a couple of times in the process, and it took all of Phil's strength not to lose his balance. It was only so long until Dan had to stop, dragging out a moment to stare at Phil's tattered skin, haunted by what his eyes were showing him. Phil could've sworn that then, there, Dan was going to break down, but just before being on the verge of doing so, Dan instead managed to turn his head to look at Phil's unmoving face… if anything that hit Phil harder. "Phil, I – I can't fucking lose you… d'you hear me? I can't – I don't know, what I would do… I need you. I _need_ you. So you need to stay here. With me. You can't d- you can't…" Dan's voice dropped to a whisper, that Phil could barely even catch, " _die_ on me." Dan horrified himself at the thought and clammed up, then, just as Phil's heart plummeted. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to be lying there on the stretcher with bloody ribbons for a leg and a bullet through his chest. He didn't want Dan's shadow to be ignored by his deadened eyes, or for Dan's hands to be so desperate to touch his lifeless shell of himself, to want to squeeze his forlorn hand or search for a (missing) pulse at his chest or card his fingers through flat strands of hair. He wanted more than this. He deserved more – they both did. Phil wanted to live out the rest of his life. He wanted to grow old. He wanted changes and a house and a dog and a family to call his and he wanted Dan now to look up and see Phil standing here and wanting all of this, wanting the things he'd hoped and dreamt and planned for the future, and most importantly wanting Dan to be there with him the whole way. He wanted life and love and happiness and new opportunities – and he even wanted the bad things too; he wanted the bad moods and the small arguments and the days where the atmosphere was dreary and he wanted all the illnesses and the anger and sadness and pain. He wanted these things: he wanted to feel them, to experience them, to endure them and be able to put his own stamp on them because _he wasn't ready to leave the world yet._ This wasn't how it was supposed to end.

And yet, here he stood, a pawn in the hands of fate. Time had made its move; and this was the day Phil Lester died.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Hello! I haven't posted a story in _ages_.**

 **Um so I wasn't too sure about this story; it's been a bit of a love/hate thing, really, cause in terms of plot I feel it's a bit bland but in terms of writing and dramatic irony and foreshadowing I'm actually kinda proud of it. I wrote this months ago, but I didn't want to post it because I was unsure about it and thought it ended too abruptly and wanted to improve loads of it... but I've neglected this website for a while and I just wanted to post SOMETHING. I would say that from now on I'll post more often and stuff but writer's block has been such a drawback for me recently and I've also got lots of super fun (stressful) exams coming up.**

 **Hey: side-note! This is my first phanfiction that I've posted! How about it huh? What a joyous way to start.  
 **Side-note of the side-note: This is also my first phanfiction involving people that are _real_ that actually _exist._ On the one hand I find it weird to write with these guys because of that reason, but on the other hand it's _fiction_. I write fanfiction because I like writing, not to infer or imply anything. Especially when it comes to these two dorks, because I know what the phandom can be like. As long as y'all aren't disrespectful to them then we're all good :) (... I mean I _say_ this yet I've just killed fictional-Phil and left fictional-Dan in a lonely turmoil for the rest of his life. Hmm.)****

 ** ** ** **I really enjoyed writing epic multi-chapter fictions here for fellow fans to read and I'd love to be able to do it again but at the moment I know I'm not going to find any time at all which is a shame. Maybe if you're lucky I'll have the chance to make short stories and post them. If not then I'm sorryyy, maybe I'll eventually have free time someday.********

 ** ** ** **Anyways this is a long author's note and I've talked for too long I'm just in a rambling kinda mood but I hope you enjoyed (perhaps not the right word) my story! I also hope you're all having a nice day whenever you read this, and if not then I hope a nice day comes to you very soon xxx********

 ** ** ** **Fingers crossed I'll be able to dedicate my life into creating another multi-chapter story from one fandom or another at some point in the future. Until then, Time-Space-And-Stories is out!********


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